A Combo for Common Week

Jacob Van LunenWednesday, April 20, 2011

elcome to Common Week here on MagicTheGathering.com. Common Week seems like a good time to check in on the current Pauper format. Pauper is a powerful format, available on Magic Online, that allows you to play with cards from any set ever printed. There's a catch, though: you may only use commons when building your deck.

Pauper is constantly changing. The card pool is so vast that new and exciting decks are discovered on a regular basis. Today, I'm going to talk about the current boogieman of Pauper, Temporal Fissure Combo!

Here's how it works:

You play Nightscape Familiars, Sunscape Familiars, and card drawing spells until you're ready to go off. (This usually happens on the fourth turn.) You use cards like Cloud of Faeries, Frantic Search, and Snap to create a lot of mana (via Familiars and Ravnica bouncelands letting you get ahead on mana with your "free" spells) and increase storm count. You cast a bunch of card draw and find a copy of Temporal Fissure. You bounce every permanent your opponent has on the battlefield back to his or her hand. You still have a few creatures that can casually attack for the win. The deck refills its hand while it combos too, so it's not unreasonable to combo off multiple times in a single game.

Let's talk about the cards that make this deck tick.

Pauper is the only format wherein you can play a full four copies of Frantic Search. Legacy would be broken beyond repair if Frantic Search was legal. The card is so powerful that it has been restricted in Vintage. Frantic Search creates extra mana when used with Ravnica bounce lands, Nightscape Familiar, or Sunscape Familiar. This may be the most abusable card in Pauper, and I'm happy to have four copies.

The deck uses Cloud of Faeries and Snap as other untap effects to generate mana alongside the bouncelands and familiars. Cloud of Faeries is often a win condition. Snap can be used to make other powerful plays. For example, Snapping an evoked Mulldrifter and netting mana isn't uncommon. Normally, you want to use Snap to target your Cloud of Faeries to generate storm and mana.

Mnemonic Wall is a nice singleton that can often make otherwise underwhelming Snaps into huge plays. It's also a nice way to ensure that you're able to cast multiple Temporal Fissures at your leisure. Going infinite is important sometimes. Being able to bounce all your opponent's permanents, a Cloud of Faeries, and a Mnemonic Wall is a way to ensure that you can combo off every single turn.

Mulldrifter is incredible here. It functions very nicely as a card draw spell and it has the added bonus of working very well with Snap. It's also worth noting that Mulldrifter is probably the most common win condition when playing the deck.

Foresee is an absolute powerhouse in this type of strategy. I've always been a huge fan of the card selection and advantage granted by Foresee. When you can successfully cast a Foresee and still have enough mana for a Snap or Cloud of Faeries, then it's usually going to result in a one-sided Upheaval.

Deep Analysis is another classic card draw spell. Originally, I had four copies of Foresee and only one copy of Deep Analysis. Personally, I prefer the card selection to cost of Foresee over the increased number of card granted by Deep Analysis. However, we are a deck with six bounce lands, and there are going to be a lot of games where we're forced to discard on the draw after playing a bounce land on the second turn. There's nothing we'd rather discard than Deep Analysis.

Compulsive Research is the most efficiently costed real card-draw spell available in Pauper. Having enough card draw in this deck is very important to make sure you hit the cards you need to when you need to combo off in a tight spot.

Temporal Fissure is this deck's top end. It's not difficult to bounce all your opponent's permanents as early as turn three and then again on turns four, five, and six. Usually, you want to wait a turn or two in between each Temporal Fissure to get some more value out of the storm.

In testing, I've found the only decks that pose a problem are aggressive red strategies and the mirror match. Occasionally, the Empty the Warrens deck can outrace you, but their draws aren't as consistent and they run the risk of playing against a lot of hate after sideboarding from most decks.

The mirror match is a tough cookie to crack. I've seen lists that play Envelop. It seems powerful, with a lot of applications, but it doesn't pack quite the punch we're looking for. Personally, I've found that Boomerang is an excellent sideboard option for the mirror here. Most Temporal Fissure players are very dependent on their bounce lands, and a timely Boomerang is almost always enough to ensure that you're going to go off first.

The mirror is entirely about who combos first. Winning the roll is very important, as most draws win on the third or fourth turn. Once one player combos, it's almost impossible for the other player to get back into the game.

If you're looking to do well in Pauper tournaments, then this is the deck for you. Pauper is one of the few formats where you can play a true combo deck that feels and acts like an old-school combo deck. If you're a Johnny, like me, then you should be sure to put this list together and play some games on Magic Online.

If you don't play online, you can start your own Pauper league. A number of my readers have started Pauper leagues at their schools or just amongst friends. Shoot me an email about your own Pauper league and tell me about some of the exciting decks.